In a study released Tuesday, the researchers from Italy's Marche Polytechnic University and Spain's University of Granada fed 12 healthy volunteers 500 grams of Sveva variety strawberries over the course of a day for two weeks. Blood samples were taken after four, eight, 12 and 16 days, as well as a month later. The results showed eating strawberries improved the antioxidant capacity of blood plasma and also made the red blood cells more resistant to fragmentation.

"We have shown that some varieties of strawberries make erythrocytes more resistant to oxidative stress. This could be of great significance if you take into account that this phenomenon can lead to serious diseases," lead author Maurizio Battino, said in a release about the study, which appears in the journal Food Chemistry.

"The important thing is that strawberries should form a part of people's healthy and balanced diet, as one of their five daily portions of fruit and vegetables," Battino said.

The researchers said the next step is to look at the different varieties of strawberries to see which kinds offer more benefits.